


Big words for someone in pink tights

by caimani



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Power Rangers Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 14:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12509076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caimani/pseuds/caimani
Summary: The Rangers rush to Zarkon's base after hearing it might contain hints about their missing teammate's whereabouts. Things don't go well for them.





	Big words for someone in pink tights

**Author's Note:**

> Title from one of the greatest one-liners from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Despite that, there's no actual pink ranger.
> 
> Lance: Red Ranger  
> Allura: Blue Ranger  
> Pidge: Green Ranger  
> Hunk: Yellow Ranger  
> Keith: Black Ranger  
> Shiro: White Ranger
> 
> Also, I wrote this before Season 4 so... yeah.

This place just _feels_ like an evil base. The entrance had creepy purple electricity arcing along metal rods and the inside is nothing but black stone and polished steel. The ceiling, the walls, the floor—all of it is the same intimidating dark colors. And the lighting doesn’t help. Instead of white light that would actually help them see their way, Zarkon’s base has purple lights which only cast enough glow to see the ground in front of them. 

And the worst thing? There’s nobody in sight except the five of them. Since they entered this massive entrance hall, they have yet to see a single enemy.

Hunk is sure that they’re way out of their depth here. Even with Lance, Allura, Keith, and Pidge beside him, he’s terrified. Sure, they’ve defeated a lot of Zarkon’s men and Robeasts before, but all those were either on familiar turf or with the help of the Lionzord. Here they’re stuck in unknown territory; one that they can barely even _see_.

Suddenly, a heavy metal door drops from the ceiling behind them, effectively trapping them inside. Startled, Hunk jumps and crashes into Lance.

“What was that?” Pidge says, whirling around.

Hunk points at the barricade. “We’re trapped!”

“It’s just one door,” Keith says. “We can break through it.”

“No. You can’t,” a voice echoes from far ahead in the entrance hall. 

Hunk squints, trying to get a visual on the source of the voice. The faint purple lights leave most of the entrance hall shrouded in darkness. He feels trapped, between the very clear lack of an immediate escape behind them and the dangerous unknown ahead.

Allura, Keith, Lance, and Pidge all move forward cautiously, weapons ready in their hands. Hunk lifts his grenade launcher up, but keeps his hand away from the trigger for now. 

“Who’s there?” Allura says.

“Where’s Shiro?!” Keith demands.

Instead of an answer, a bolt of purple lightning slams into the ground directly in front of them, forcing them all to scatter. Allura breaks off to the right, while Pidge moves to the left. Keith activates his shield and sticks close to Lance, and Hunk moves behind them both. He looks at the door that dropped down earlier, wondering if his grenades might be enough to blast through. Probably not.

“Haggar!” Allura hisses, moving into an offensive stance with her blue staff. 

“Don’t split up!” Lance says, shooting at the direction the lightning came from. The red energy blasts don’t hit anything but the far wall, but Lance keeps firing in a sweeping arc to attempt to locate their enemy.

Hunk aims at a point near Lance’s shots and shoots off one of his grenades. A few seconds later, the resulting explosion illuminates Haggar, who creates a large purple shield to protect herself from the blast. It also shows four people standing behind her. 

The blast from the grenade doesn’t last long; only long enough for Hunk to see them split away from Haggar, moving straight for the Rangers. They break off from each other, each one heading for a Ranger.

Three of them are coming straight for Lance, Keith, and Hunk. Hunk recognizes the biggest one as Sendak, the scary guy who almost defeated Shiro several months ago. Lance shoots at Sendak, but his shots do little to slow him down. In what feels like no time at all, Sendak reaches them. He actually picks Lance off the ground and roars as he throws Lance aside, away from Hunk and Keith.

“Lance!” Hunk exclaims.

“Look out!” Keith says, pushing Hunk out of the way right as another guy swings a crackling purple sword down onto the spot where Hunk was just standing. Keith blocks his next swing with his own sword, and purple sparks fly.

Hunk doesn’t have much time to assess Keith’s opponent, because the last of Zarkon’s men has reached him. This last has a rocket launcher large enough to rival Hunk’s grenade launcher for size. He’s not moving as fast as the other two, but he clearly doesn’t feel a need to. With a chilling confidence, he points the barrel of his weapon at Hunk. 

Oh no, Hunk’s still too close to Keith. If a rocket explodes here, they’ll both be caught in the blast. 

Hunk quickly turns and runs. 

“Don’t get separated!” Lance says in their communicator. “We need to stick tog—” Abruptly, his voice gets cut off by static. Or… maybe not static. It almost sounds like whispering.

Hunk’s speculation about the interference is cut off as a rocket explodes right behind him. The force of the explosion sends him flying into a hallway branching off from the main entrance hall. Shakily, Hunk picks himself up to try and get back to the other Rangers.

But the rocket launcher guy is blocking the path. Hunk runs farther down the side hallway. It’s impossible to pay attention to where he’s going, since everything looks the same with all the black and metal walls and dimly glowing purple lights. Another rocket explosion behind him destroys some of the metal paneling and cuts out some of the lights. Hunk yelps and tries his communicator.

“Hey guys, I could really use some help!” he says. “One of them is chasing me away! What’s going on back there?”

The response is nothing but eerie whispering. 

Hunk tries again. “Guys? Lance? Allura? Keith? Pidge?”

No answer. He stops in front of a door at the end of the twisting hallway. He turns around and aims his grenade launcher at the last bend, waiting for the enemy to show his face. As soon as he sees movement, Hunk fires, catching a glimpse of the guy as he dodges the explosion. 

“Guys? What’s going on?!” he calls out into the communicator. Again, he gets nothing but whispers. It’s starting to put Hunk on edge, so he decides it’s better to just shut the communicator off.

“I am Prorok,” his opponent says as introduction, voice echoing down the hall. “And your friends won’t be answering you anymore. The last voice you will ever hear is mine.” 

Another rocket soars past Hunk, colliding with the doors behind him. Hunk throws himself to the ground as the explosion sends hot shockwaves through the air. 

When he gets back on his feet, Hunk repositions his grenade launcher, ready to shoot at Prorok as soon as he sticks his head out again. But instead, Prorok comes out charging at Hunk. Hunk fires but Prorok is too quick, letting the grenade bounce past him and detonate at a harmless distance. 

Prorok slams his shoulder straight into Hunk, forcing him backwards with his momentum and breaking the newly broken door.

Hunk falls.

And he keeps falling.

With a sickening lurch of his stomach, Hunk realizes several things all at once. The door he had been standing in front of was an elevator. He didn’t really avoid that last rocket. Prorok hit exactly what he wanted.

Hunk yells desperately as he plummets down the elevator shaft.

~~~~

Sendak’s punches are heavy and unfairly fast. All Lance can do to evade them is to try and stay out of Sendak’s range. It’s really unfair, him ending up with the close combat bad guy. Not just that, but the close combat guy with huge energized gauntlets that immobilized half the team before. Last time, Lance and the rest of the team were able to rely on Shiro’s close range combat skills to gain an upper hand againt Sendak. But now, Lance knows that the odds are stacked against him, big time.

“Your team shall fall, Red Ranger,” Sendak says, missing Lance by a hair and leaving a large dent in a wall. “Give up and hand over your powers to Zarkon.”

“Only thing I’ll be handing to Zarkon is you in a box,” Lance retorts. He swings his rifle up to block against one of Sendak’s punches and immediately regrets it as he feels as a fraction of the energy blast ripple painfully through his arm. He almost drops his rifle from the shock. Spotting an opening, Sendak kicks Lance in the chest, sending him staggering back a few feet.

Lance quickly forces himself to recover and shoots at Sendak as he advances on him. But Sendak blocks the shots with his glowing purple shield again. At least it makes him stop moving for a second. Lance uses this as a diversion so he can bolt in the opposite direction.

He knows Sendak’s chasing him, but thankfully, what Lance lacks in strength he knows he makes up for in speed. He sprints down the entire length of the hallway and turns at the next corner. Where he’s going, he has no clue, but anywhere has to be better than right next to Sendak.

“You’re _weak_!” Sendak taunts. “All you can do is run! Your defeat is inevitable.”

Lance skids to a halt. He’s come to the end of this path: a pair of heavy metal doors with a handprint scanner at the far right side. Unless he can get these open very soon, he’s at a dead end. Possibly a literal dead end.

Lance shoots at the handprint scanner lock. No good. He can hear Sendak’s loud footsteps marching closer, so he changes tactics. He presses himself into a small indent in the wall and aims his rifle at the purple light fixtures on the ceiling and walls. He rapidly shoots at the purple lights, shattering them one after another and casting the dead end hall into darkness. Now at least he’s got some temporary cover.

Sendak comes around the corner and stops. Lance holds still. He doesn’t have long until Sendak sees the red of his armor. He keeps his finger on the trigger.

Wait for it…

Sendak sees him and yells wordlessly, rushing at him.

_Now._

Lance shoots twice, hitting the bottom seams of Sendak’s heavy gauntlets. They spark massively and Lance grins. Then he throws himself out of the way, just in time for one of the gauntlets to graze past his arm. But there’s no blast of purple energy, so hopefully his last-second plan to disable the gauntlets worked.

He rolls to his feet. Sendak is already closing in on him, so Lance raises his rifle and fires. But Sendak has the shield up this time. He keeps pressing forwards, using the shield to herd Lance back until he’s forced into the left corner of the dead end hallway.

“I will _enjoy_ destroying you this time,” Sendak growls. 

“Yeah, well I think I’d enjoy _not_ being destroyed today,” Lance says, shooting relentlessly at the shield. 

Suddenly Sendak charges forwards, using his shield to crush Lance into the corner. It doesn’t hurt much because of his armor, but he cries out in pain anyway. If Sendak thinks he’s more hurt than he is, then he can try and use that to his advantage.

Lance drops his rifle and falls to the ground. Sendak deactivates his shield and grabs him, then slams him roughly into the door. 

Okay, _that_ hurt. Lance glares at Sendak and grabs onto the huge gauntlet as Sendak pins him in place. But Lance notices that his shot from before damaged the weapon and left it vulnerable. He digs past the broken pieces and pulls on some wires, even as Sendak hefts him up and throws him into the doors. 

They still haven’t opened, even with Sendak hitting Lance against them. 

Lance dives to the side and Sendak’s gauntlet crashes into the floor where he had fallen. He gets up and starts backing away again, until he’s up against the handprint panel he had tried shooting just a short while ago. Sendak rears his arm back, and right as he starts throwing his devastating punch, Lance twists out of the way. 

Sendak’s fist grazes his right side. Ouch. But the important thing is his plan worked. Sendak’s punch destroys the panel and the doors open. 

Lance dives for his rifle and spins around to take a shot at Sendak. He can’t help but grin as he sees that Sendak’s got his gauntlet stuck in the wall. Lance fires repeatedly at the seams in his armor and Sendak roars. Hopefully in pain. Lance isn’t about to stick around to see the results; he just needs to do enough damage to keep Sendak in one place for a bit.

Lance turns and darts through the open doors, which lead him into a large storage room full of parts for Zarkon’s creepy Robeasts. There are a couple desks with computers on one side of the room. Lance shoots them, hopefully destroying all their giant robot-making information. He doesn’t linger though, since Sendak is still yelling and threatening him from outside the room. On the opposite side of the storeroom is another door with a handprint scanner. Lance smashes the paneling with the butt of his rifle.

It opens. Lance rushes through and takes a quick left down the next hall. He runs through the maze of Zarkon’s base in zigzags until he’s sure that Sendak won’t be able to find him. Only then does he collapse against a wall, panting and shaking from exertion.

Sendak said the rest of the Rangers are all being hunted by Zarkon’s top men. Lance clenches his fists, hoping they’re all doing okay. He hopes they’re not all alone.

After catching his breath, he rises and starts down the hallway again, noting the information written on the door signs. They’re mostly all labs and storage rooms, and they’re all locked with handprint scanners. This could be where Zarkon has all those Robeasts made before he sends them after the Rangers. 

Lance suddenly freezes when he hears noises in the distance. He strains to listen.

It sounds like a fight. Lance takes off toward the noises. As he moves, he turns on his communicator, hoping to connect with anyone on his team. But the only sound it has is that creepy mind-control-like message from earlier. He shuts the communicator off quickly, shuddering at the sensation he gets from Haggar’s whispery voice.

~~~~

It’s one thing to figure out that this Robeast’s weakness is its need to recharge its weapon every third strike. It’s another thing entirely to actually be able to do something about it. Pidge’s weapon is an electrified katar! She’s best against something human-sized, slow-moving, and full of weak spots. A Robeast approximately ten times her size is… not exactly those things.

At least she was able to defeat Ladnok with the katar. Too bad she forced Pidge away from everyone else and onto a shaky catwalk above this huge hangar. To make things even worse, when Pidge knocked her opponent unconscious, she lost her balance and fell clear off the catwalk. And to make things somehow even worse than that, on the way down, Pidge fell onto the Robeast, which activated and is now trying to destroy her.

“I thought you guys wanted our Ranger morphers!” Pidge yells, diving out of the way of another attacks. “This thing’s going to end up destroying it!” 

Is someone even listening? She doesn’t care. Even if she’s only yelling at the Robeast, she needs to vent her frustration.

All she needs is some kind of distraction so she can make use of some of the equipment lying around the hanger to try and defeat this thing. Or turn it off. She’s desperate for anything. She already tried using the katar’s grapple, which just made her an easy target for the Robeast’s attacks. 

This is the worst fight ever.

As Pidge picks herself off the ground to run in a new direction, she hears a commotion from behind her. It’s loud enough that she can distinguish it from her fight. She spares a brief couple of seconds to look back.

Hunk. _Hunk_ is running through a set of swinging double doors into the hangar, yelling in terror. He skids to a halt, presumably when he sees the huge Robeast.

“Hunk!” Pidge says, hurrying over to him. “Am I glad to see—”

“Watch out!” Hunk yells, lifting his grenade launcher and shooting past Pidge, into the hangar. Pidge looks over her shoulder. She flinches as Hunk’s glowing yellow grenade makes contact with the Robeast’s glowing purple energy blast, creating a large combined explosion. Hunk pulls Pidge close and shields her from both the Robeast and the doors he just emerged from.

“Be careful,” Hunk says. “There’s a guy with a rocket launcher coming after me.”

“Are you kidding me?” Pidge says. She peers over Hunk’s shoulder at the doors. “We have to deal with _two_ bad guys trying to kill us?”

Hunk fires his grenade launcher repeatedly at the Robeast. It’s nice to see the thing is finally taking some damage. “At least we’re not alone,” Hunk says. “Prorok said Zarkon’s guys split us all up so they could take us down one by one.”

Oh, that’s really bad. Pidge has been wondering about what might be happening to the others since they got separated earlier. If they’re all dealing with Zarkon’s superior officers plus a Robeast… Pidge is about to reply, but at that moment, there’s a loud explosion that destroys the double doors and sends debris flying through the hangar.

A man in dark gray and purple armor emerges from the dust cloud, carrying a large rocket launcher. He catches sight of Hunk and Pidge and grins cruelly at them.

“Pidge!” Hunk cries in alarm, pushing Pidge to the side as he uses his grenade launcher to turn another blast from the Robeast into a fiery explosion.

“How are we supposed to take both of them out?” Pidge says. She glances from the Robeast, which is charging its weapon, back to Prorok, who is raising his loaded rocket launcher to aim at them. Thinking fast, she activates her shield to cover them from the rocket. Didn’t help against the Robeast’s overpowered attacks, but it should handle a normal rocket.

But Prorok doesn’t shoot at them. He aims his rocket up at the ceiling and fires. Pidge looks up just in time to see the rocket make impact with a large piece of machinery hanging from the ceiling.

“Oh no!” Pidge turns her shield so it covers her and Hunk’s heads as huge pieces of debris rain down on them. The pieces fall heavily on the shield, jarring her arm, and she struggles to keep it up.

“No, you don’t!” Hunk says, pointing his grenade launcher at the guy and shooting again. Pidge looks away from her shield to see the guy moving for cover behind one of the piles of clutter in the hangar. 

By now, however, the Robeast has recharged its weapon and is about to send another huge purple energy attack at them. Hunk grabs Pidge’s hand and together they run away to find their own shelter. The energy blast hits the pile of debris from the ceiling, scattering it further. Some of the pieces hit Pidge’s armor as she and Hunk run to hide behind a nearby transport truck. It’s been damaged from an earlier hit from the Robeast, but it will hold a while longer.

“What do we do?” Hunk says, peeking over the top of the truck. “I still can’t get in contact with anyone else.”

“We’ll find them,” Pidge says. She’s feeling a lot more confident with one of her friends here. They’ll find Lance, Allura, and Keith soon. As soon as they’re able to get out of this hangar without the Robeast or Prorok following. 

She winces as another energy blast hits the truck. They’re running out of time. “Every third hit, that Robeast has to recharge,” she says quickly. “We’ll have some time to move, but we can’t get too close to it or it’ll crush us.”

“Prorok also needs time to reload his rockets,” Hunk says. “But I can’t get a good shot at him because he keeps moving away from me whenever he reloads.”

Pidge sneaks a quick look at the Robeast, which is taking thunderous steps across the hangar towards their hiding spot. Prorok is also emerging from his cover, and Pidge ducks down again. An idea is starting to form in her head.

“Time’s up, Rangers,” Prorok roars. His voice echoes in the hangar, but Pidge is pretty sure she knows where he is. “Surrender now. You can’t possibly win.”

Pidge’s hand clenches on her katar. “Hunk,” she whispers. “You try and keep the Robeast from recharging once it does its third attack. I’ll deal with Prorok.”

He nods and dashes out from the opposite side of the truck, yelling to attract the Robeast’s attention. Pidge runs back the way they came. As she thought, Prorok isn’t far. She runs straight for him, ready with her katar. Behind her, the Robeast’s third blast demolishes the remainder of the truck, and it’s followed by the familiar sounds of Hunk’s grenade launcher.

Prorok’s rocket launcher is armed, but he isn’t able to aim it before Pidge cuts deep into the barrel with the glowing green blade of her katar. She’s able to send a roundhouse kick directly into Prorok’s stomach—which looks totally awesome—before she feels the rocket start to detonate prematurely inside the damaged barrel. 

The resulting blast sends her flying to the side, and has Prorok screaming as he tries to get away from his own weapon. Pidge’s ears are ringing and she’s pretty dazed, but she manages to get to her feet. And she visually confirms that Prorok is down and will most likely stay down. Yes!

Across the hangar, Hunk appears to have done a lot of damage to the Robeast. The Robeast’s weapon is shattered and smoking, and its armor is covered in dents. In some places, the grenades have blown away whole chunks of the Robeast’s armor or have outright stopped moving parts.

But right now, it’s aiming its weapon at Hunk. Pidge shouts to try and get its attention. 

The Robeast looks away from Hunk, and starts towards Pidge. It’s making more screeching metal noises as it moves now, although its footsteps that rattle the ground are no less heavy and intimidating. Pidge backs up and checks the ceiling for any more helpful junk they can drop on the Robeast. 

_There_. “Hunk! Aim for that thing on the ceiling!” Pidge yells as she points at something that looks like a crane. Whatever it is, it’s big enough to at least slow down the Robeast so they can get out of here. 

Pidge runs to lure the Robeast so it’s standing directly below the crane thing. She waits, heart beating fast, as it comes closer with every second. The moment it’s close enough, she dashes out of the way.

There’s a loud cluster of explosions, and Pidge turns her head up to the ceiling to watch several of Hunk’s grenades drop the crane right on top of the Robeast. It loses its balance and topples to the ground, momentarily pinned. Pidge stops and punches a fist into the air.

“Yes!” she says. “We did it!”

Hunk crosses the hangar to meet up with her. “Come on,” he says, a bit breathless from all the running around. “Let’s get out of here before it gets up.”

~~~~

If this was only a swordfight, Keith knows he’d be winning. But Haxus is a cheater. His glowing purple blade sparks every time it comes in contact with Keith’s sword. The purple sparks travel through the sword and numb Keith’s arm, forcing him to switch hands constantly so he can shake back feeling.

“Tired yet?” Haxus says. 

“I could do this all day,” Keith growls, swinging fiercely at Haxus. If he can just make contact with the guy’s body, then he can start pushing back. But with each strike, Haxus stops Keith with his own sword, sending more painful sparks into his arm.

Keith jumps back and activates his shield. Haxus stays where he is, watching him with a satisfied smirk. Keith is getting tired and Haxus knows it.

“Even if you could, Black Ranger,” Haxus says. “It won’t do your team any good. By now, the rest of them have all been defeated. Soon, Zarkon will—”

Keith yells and charges at Haxus, slashing fast and forcing Haxus to react fast to parry his blade. Keith keeps pressing forward, ignoring the sparking needles of pain in his hand. He sees an opening and takes it, swinging his fist at Haxus’ face. He lands a good punch on the guy’s smug face. Then there’s a sudden burst of pain at Keith’s right shoulder. 

That distracts him long enough that Haxus smacks the flat of his sword against Keith’s helmet, disorienting him even worse. Keith gasps and stumbles back. He reaches up to touch his shoulder, which burns in agony. Has—has he just been shot?

Keith looks at Haxus, who has lowered his sword to point a small gun at him. “Enough of this,” he says, eyes narrowed. “I can just take your morpher off your body. You’ve lost.”

No. Not yet.

Keith grips his sword tightly, ready to fight until he can’t move. But all thoughts of the fight fly out of his mind when he sees someone moving behind Haxus. 

Lance, aiming his rifle at Haxus. Relief floods through Keith.

Haxus cries out in startled surprise as Lance shoots him in the back. He falls to the ground with a thud. 

Keith stares from Haxus to Lance. 

Lance starts running over to Keith. “Keith!” he says, “You’re okay!”

“Lance,” Keith says, his voice thick with emotion. He drops his hand from where he was holding it protectively against his shoulder. He just manages to stand up straighter when Lance captures him in a one-armed hug. Keith closes his eyes and returns the embrace, panting as he starts to calm himself down.

Lance lets Keith go, but Keith holds onto his arm, using him like an anchor. “We need to find everyone else,” Lance says. “Zarkon’s base is big, and I have no idea where they all ended up when we got split up. I’m not even sure where _we’ve_ ended up.”

Keith looks around. He remembers which way he came from, but he also remembers that way is full of more of Zarkon’s henchmen. They only backed off because Haxus had ordered them away, determined to finish off Keith himself.

But hey, he and Lance can take them easily. They’re the Black Ranger and the Red Ranger.

“This way,” he says, already taking off down the hallway.

Lance follows several paces behind him. “You sure?” he says.

Keith bursts into the room he and Haxus left mere minutes ago. The two dozen henchmen are still there. They all seem surprised to see Keith returning instead of Haxus. That’s good; it gives Keith and Lance the upper hand. Keith charges straight into their midst, cutting down two henchmen before they can even raise their weapons. 

Several precise red shots from Lance’s rifle take out a few more of Zarkon’s men. Keith stays low to the ground and moves quickly as he tears through the unorganized crowd. Shots and shouts ring through the air from the henchmen, trying in vain to gain control of the fight. Their efforts fail when Keith’s sword and Lance’s rifle shots simultaneously find the officer in charge. 

“Keith! I had that guy!” Lance says indignantly.

“So did I.” Keith says, smirking with satisfaction as he slashes at another guy aiming for Lance.

A split second later, Keith’s injured shoulder gets shot again by someone using a few large storage boxes as cover. Unintentionally, Keith cries out and falls to his knee. Over the shock of worsening pain threatening to overwhelm his head, he hears multiple shots close to him, followed by the thuds of the henchmen falling to the floor.

Lance appears in his vision as he drags Keith to cover. “Keith! What happened?”

Keith shakes his head and tries to get to his feet again. “We don’t have time. Come on, there’s only a few of them left.”

“Keith, wait—”

Keith pushes Lance back behind their cover and charges back out into the fight. This time, he activates his shield. With it deflecting the remaining henchmen’s purple laser fire, he runs straight for the guy hiding behind the storage boxes. He whirls around the corner of the boxes and cuts down the guy. There’s another person hiding next to him, but that guy is too startled to react before Keith takes him down too.

There are a few more sounds of shooting from Lance’s rifle and the henchmen’s guns, and then silence. Keith deactivates his shield and looks back at where Lance has emerged from his cover. 

“I think that’s everyone,” Lance says, looking carefully around the room.

“Good,” Keith says. He spares a moment to catch his breath, and then heads for the other door in the room. “Now we need to go—”

“ _No_ , now we need to do something about your injuries,” Lance says firmly. “What happened to you?”

Keith scowls. “I’m fine,” he says. 

Lance looks extremely skeptical. Keith huffs and leaves the room so he can avoid the inevitable argument.

In the middle of the larger room connected to the last one is a row of Zarkon’s men. All of them are holding laser guns aimed at Keith. Not good. Keith and Lance have lost the element of surprise.

An officer standing behind the line shouts, “Fire!” and the row of henchmen open fire on Keith. He barely has enough time to activate his shield again before the force of all the laser fire pushes him against the now-closed door connecting the two rooms. The laser fire ceases, only for the officer to leap towards Keith, wielding a huge hammer. 

Keith dives and rolls out of the way, leaving the officer to smash his hammer into the door. The officer steadies himself and says, “Ready!” The henchmen aim their guns at Keith again.

At that moment, the handle of the door is blown away with a burst of red light. 

Keith yells, “Lance, wait!” but his voice is drowned out by the officer ordering his men to fire. He braces himself against the force of concentrated laser fire, which once again stops after a few seconds. Predictably, the officer comes at Keith for a second try at hitting him with his hammer. But instead of avoiding the hit, Keith stands his ground. He swings his sword at the hammer right as the officer starts to bring it down.

Keith is vaguely aware of a commotion at the door, but his attention is focused on his fight with the officer. His sword cuts cleanly through the handle of the hammer. The head of the hammer flies free and the officer loses his balance. Only then does Keith move out of the way—away from both the hammer head and the falling man. 

Keith gets to his feet just as a red blast of Lance’s rifle fire bursts against the officer’s shoulders. He looks up to see the other henchmen lying on the ground and Lance rising out of an offensive stance.

Lance fixes him with a frown. “You _sure_ it’s this way?”

~~~~

Allura waits silently in the pitch-black mechanical room, eyes closed. Her helmet is de-morphed, which is the only thing keeping Haggar’s mind-controlling whispers out of her ears. Earlier, it was difficult to deal with both Haggar’s electricity and her attempts at taking over Allura’s mind at the same time. Like this, all she has to worry about is the purple lightning. Still dangerous, but at least her attention isn’t divided.

Haggar isn’t moving around yet, but the last Allura heard her, she was still on the far side of the mechanical room near the door. Allura is leaning against a large cement column, waiting with her staff close to her body. Her breathing is as soft as she can make it. All around her, the mechanical room hums as the machines continue to work in the dark. When Allura got here a few minutes ago, she had cut the wires for the lights but hadn’t had time to shut off all the machinery.

Now she’s waiting. This is the perfect place to finally gain the upper hand against Haggar. Allura memorized the layout of the mechanical room before killing the lights. Unless Haggar can see in the dark, she’s going to have to give away her position with her magic purple lightning.

Haggar has started walking through the darkened room now. Her footsteps are barely audible over the rumbles of machines, but Allura can pick them out. 

She’s coming closer. Allura opens her eyes and looks from side to side. She can barely see anything in the darkness, besides the handful of tiny lights on the machines. But Allura can _hear_ Haggar, so she focuses to her left. There it is. There’s the faintest purple glow from under Haggar’s black cloak. Allura has never been so glad that the Ranger morphers give her practical armor that _doesn’t_ glow, unlike whoever creates the armor for Zarkon’s forces.

Allura watches the faint purple glow draw closer. Haggar isn’t quite close enough yet. Allura’s grip tightens on her staff.

One more step. And then another.

Now, with every ounce of speed and strength Allura can muster, she swings the staff at Haggar. The woman yells in surprise. But Allura’s attack knocks Haggar to the ground with a harsh crack before she can counterattack.

Allura jumps back behind the column, falling silent again and bracing herself. She either did it, or she just made Haggar extremely angry. Allura strains to listen.

Nothing. 

Carefully, she pokes her head around the column. Haggar’s faint glowing form is lying on the ground in the same place that she fell. Allura’s heart pounds, but she activates the light on her chestplate. The soft blue light reveals Haggar on the ground, convincingly unconscious. 

Allura moves a bit closer with her light, holding her staff tight in her other hand. Haggar doesn’t jump up or anything. Her hands don’t flash with purple lightning. Okay, she’s knocked out. 

Allura feels a triumphant smile come to her face. “You’re not so tough without all your mind-control and electricity, are you?” she says. Haggar doesn’t answer, too busy being unconscious.

After moving carefully around Haggar and turning off her light, Allura quickly leaves the room. She makes sure it’s locked and barred before she re-morphs her helmet. She turns her communicator back on and is delighted when it’s free of creepy whispers.

“Everyone, can you hear me?” she says. “This is Allura. Haggar shouldn’t be a problem now.”

“Allura!” Lance says. “Are you alright?”

She tries to answer, but the communicator channel is suddenly full of cries of relief from Hunk, Pidge, and Keith. Allura doesn’t think she’s ever been so glad to hear all their voices.

“Yes,” Allura says. “I’m fine. I took care of Haggar.”

“Whoa, awesome!” Lance says. “Good work, Allura!”

“Me and Hunk took down a Robeast!” Pidge says.

“And one of Zarkon’s guys,” Hunk adds.

“Two, actually,” Pidge says. “Hunk, I dealt with one before you showed up.”

“Where are you?” Keith says over Hunk’s response. “Lance and I aren’t finding anything except more of Zarkon’s henchmen.”

“And Haggar’s creepy magic science rooms,” Lance says. “They’re building some seriously bad-looking stuff in here. You should see some of this—oh! Hey, since our communications are back, we can probably use our Ranger tech to find each other. Pidge, Hunk?”

“Already on it,” Hunk says. “It’s great to hear you guys again.”

Allura smiles. “I think I remember where we got split up. For now, I’ll head back there.”

She collapses her staff and secures it against her thigh, then starts running back down the long, narrow mechanical hallway. Soon she passes the scars and burns on the walls where Haggar’s electrical attacks missed Allura earlier. 

“I can’t believe you defeated _Haggar_ ,” Lance says, a note of awe in his voice. “I mean, I know you’re the best and obviously more talented than her. But. Wow. You defeated her! That’s the power of our Blue Ranger!”

Allura laughs, although Lance’s praise makes her chest swell with pride. That fight was hard. It was terrifying, trying to evade Haggar’s powerful magic attacks with no knowledge of her teammates status. But she did it. She did it.

“Allura’s the best?” Pidge says, playfully indignant. “What about Hunk? He destroyed an entire Robeast on his own!”

Pidge gleefully bickers with Lance over the communicators as Allura emerges from the narrow hallway. She can find her way back from here. 

“Okay, I’ve located where we all are,” Hunk says. “We’re… wow, we’re pretty spread out. I’m sending you all what I have.”

There’s a soft beep at Allura’s wrist and the tech on her forearm projects a soft blue hologram of a map in front of her. She stops to examine it. Her position is marked with a blue dot. She traces the lines of the map quickly with her eyes. Oh. Zarkon’s base is much bigger than Allura originally thought. No wonder the Rangers got so lost, especially considering that Zarkon’s best officers were forcing them all away from each other.

Lance and Keith are in a labyrinthine mess at the other side of the facility, and somehow Hunk and Pidge are two floors down, in some kind of basement full of enormous rooms. 

“I can go over to where Lance and Keith are,” she says. The red and black dots look like they’re moving vaguely in her direction. Maybe. With all the confusing twists and turns, it’s hard to tell how to get from one place to another.

“Then we’ll hunt down Zarkon,” Keith says determinedly.

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” Lance says. 

“What?” several voices, including Allura’s, say all at once.

“Okay, hear me out,” Lance says. “Zarkon lured us here with a hint about Shiro. He blocked the entrance and separated us as soon as we got here, and—oh, not more of them!”

“Zarkon’s guys have found us!” Hunk says.

Allura stops. “Should I go down to help Hunk and Pidge, or—”

“No, we’ve got these guys!” Pidge says. 

“Allura, if you can, see if you can figure out an exit that we can use to get out of here,” Lance says quickly. “Zarkon has the upper hand. This is his base and who knows how many of his henchmen he can throw at us. We weren’t ready for this, but we can still get out of here together.”

“What about Shiro?” Keith says.

His demand is followed by a long moment of silence, only filled by the faint sounds of fighting. 

Finally, Allura says, “We all want to find Shiro. But now isn’t the time.”

“We’ve got a map of Zarkon’s base,” Hunk says. 

“We’ll find Shiro eventually,” Lance says. “Allura and Hunk are right; we can’t do it today, but we’ll be better prepared next time.”

Allura looks over the map that Hunk sent her. There’s no end to the number of rooms and twisting hallways, but there are also a handful of clear exits. “Lance, Keith, there’s something that looks like an emergency exit near you. Continue forwards, take the first right, and the exit will be in the room at the end. Pidge, Hunk…” she breaks off and examines their basement. “The room you’re in has a door that leads to a service hallway. That will take you out of Zarkon’s base.”

“Great work, Allura!” Lance says. “You heard her, guys, get out as fast as you can!”

Allura watches the dots start to move, and then tracks an exit for herself.

~~~~

This is probably the most dangerous emergency exit Lance has ever seen. First, the door was rusted and Keith had to cut through the hinges to break it open. Then, it only opened to a sheer drop down a cliffside. When they were hurrying to Zarkon’s base earlier today, Lance didn’t realize that the place is so large that it stretches all the way to the nearby sea cliffs.

Attached to the rocky cliffside is a long column of rickety ladder rungs, which Lance and Keith are using to climb down. They’ll end up on the beach below. Hunk and Pidge will be waiting down there for them, since they said on the communicators that they’re safely out. Allura isn’t far behind. 

Lance is glad there aren’t any of Zarkon’s men pursuing them or, even worse, shooting at them from above. He constantly glances up just to be sure. His rifle is hanging against his back, but he can grab it in seconds if he needs to. Keith, descending the cliff below Lance, won’t be able to do anything except shield himself if anyone starts attacking. 

The climb is exhausting on Lance’s body. After being chased and punched and thrown around by Sendak, he knew he would need time to recover. He didn’t get much of a breather before he started running through the base with Keith, fighting every group of henchmen they came across.

Actually though… now that Lance thinks about it, there really weren’t as many people in the base as there probably should have been. Despite the whole thing being an obvious trap for them, Zarkon really didn’t send many of his men after them. Sure, some of them were really strong and hard to defeat, but once those were out of the way…

Could all of that have been a distraction?

Lance pauses on the ladder and looks back up at the door, far above him now. They still don’t know enough. Not about Zarkon or about his plans. All they know is that he wants the morphers, and that he’ll use any means to defeat the Rangers to get them. 

They need to be more careful after this.

Finally, Lance drops from the last few rungs onto the sandy beach below. Hunk, Pidge, Allura, and Keith are all gathered together.

“Lance! Keith!” Hunk grabs both of them in a hug. “I’m so glad to be out of that place!”

“Me too,” Lance admits, hugging both Keith and Hunk warmly. It’s reassuring, seeing everyone in one place again. Hearing them on the communicators was great, but it’s nothing compared to seeing them all together.

Allura and Pidge move forward to join in the group hug as well. Everyone’s armor clunks against each other as they squeeze together. 

“Let’s all go home now,” Pidge says.

Lance nods. They all let go and Lance presses the homing beacon on his wrist. A red light flashes, and a moment later, there’s a loud roar. Soon, the Lionzord soars over the top of the cliff and lands on the beach. 

“Good to see you,” Lance says. He leads the way to the hatch as it opens for the Rangers. They all climb into the zord and take their positions at the color-coded seats in the cockpit. And together, they activate the Lionzord’s systems it flies up and over the water, leaving Zarkon’s base behind them.

Once the Lionzord is safely in the air, nobody says anything for a minute or so. Then Allura breaks the silence. “I… while I was leaving, I found a room with several computers.” Allura takes out a thick circular black device with a glowing purple center. “I couldn’t do anything to the computers, but one of them was saving files to this.”

“Whoa,” Pidge carefully takes the device from Allura. “I’ve never seen any kind of digital storage like this.”

Allura offers a slight smile. “Maybe we can get something off it? Something that will tell us more about Zarkon, and maybe some clue about what happened to Shiro.”

Lance nods. “We can check it out once we get back.”

“Thanks,” Keith says softly. 

Allura nods. “We’ll find him soon.”

Lance returns his attention to the controls. For a second, his eyes stray to Shiro’s empty place—the seat for the White Ranger. Keith’s brother is supposed to be there. _He’s_ supposed to be leading them. Maybe he would have recognized this failed attack on Zarkon’s base as the trap or distraction that it really was. Then again, the only reason the Rangers rushed to Zarkon’s base was because of Shiro.

A thought suddenly occurs to Lance. 

For all his taunting, Sendak never did mention their missing White Ranger. Even though they were lured to the base with fake news about Shiro, none of Zarkon’s men actually said anything about him. That’s… that’s got to be a good sign, right? Best case scenario: that means Zarkon doesn’t actually know anything about Shiro. Zarkon just used him as a ruse to trick them.

He’s not ready to bring up that theory with the rest of the team yet. Not until he confirms it with the information on the device. 

Now, he’s just glad they all made it out of Zarkon’s base safely.

When the city skyline appears in the distance, Lance finally allows himself to relax and says, “We’re almost home.”


End file.
